Loyalties were divided in Appalachia, from Kentucky to Tennessee to North Carolina. And it was in western North Carolina that a Confederate army unit committed an atrocity against Union sympathizers living in Madison County.
Today we tell that story.
You can subscribe to the Stories podcast on a ton of apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Audible, IHeart Radio, TuneIn, Amazon Music, Deezer and more.
We’re on YouTube too! Be sure to click that “Subscribe” button, ding the bell for notification of new episodes, and give us a thumbs up…
Thanks for listening and thanks for sharing our stories with your friends…
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
After the Sheltons Laurel Massacre and the end of the war, the people living in Sheltons Laurel remained bitter. Even today, some say, the people living in Sheltons Laurel remain suspicious and unwelcoming to outsiders. My family is from “Bloody Madison,” as the county is called for a number of reasons. But I have never lived there. In the 1980s, my wife and I built a summer home near the BR Parkway out of nearby Burnsville. Once we had a house cleaner doing day work for us. Something she said made me realize that she was from Sheltons Laurel. Having studied southern history in grad school, I said to her, “Really! You are from Shelton’s Laurel.” She turned, faced me, and in the most assertive tone said, “Yeh, I am. What about it!” I think folks living in the Laurel valley are still very sensitive about what occurred there and their post-Civil War allegiance to the Union. I asked her, very gently, if she knew where the graves from the massacre were. She said she was not sure but she thought the local folks “stood up some field rocks” to mark the graves. I was never able to local them, but I think they could be located today.